Billy Graham, borrowing from St. Augustine, frequently refers to a “God-shaped void” in the human heart. For as long as I remember, I’d experienced this void in two forms.

One was an intense need to be sure. The grandson of Southern Baptist missionaries to Cuba, I’d grown up in a good home with a Christian atmosphere but one where God was only occasionally acknowledged. From an early age,I was fully aware that the Lord desired a personal relationship. My problem was the question of truth. As I look back now from the perspective of an adult, I think I can say that as early as age eleven, I was desperately anxious to be sure that whatever I ended up committing my life to, it reflected the central truth of reality, not some fragment I’d have to discard and then start over.

My other experience of the God-shaped void was what C. S. Lewis describes as “a homesickness for a place we’ve never been.” He calls this “Joy,” although it’s more like grief because it’s a yearning for something we lack. For me, this grief was so intense it was positively painful. A paradoxical feature of Joy is that its only satisfaction in this life is to feel it yet more intensely. I compare it to a photo of his family a soldier takes with him on a tour of duty. The picture lacks the substance of his family and awakens homesickness, but it’s a kind of pain he wants to feel. This seems to be the function of the God-shaped void in my life. By virtue of its resemblance to the thing missing in my life, it suggested the direction to go to fill that void.

As it was for Lewis, the quest to fill this emptiness became the central theme of my life. Outside of school,I chose every book to read based on how it re-awakened this longing. For me, it was evoked most strongly by myth, fantasy, and science fiction. Ironically, I never met anyone else who ever expressed this longing and suspected for many years that I might be the only one who felt this way. I was an adult before I realized that this is a universal longing.

My family was part of a good Southern Baptist church, and I heard an evangelistic sermon every Sunday morning and evening. By the age of eleven I was under strong conviction. However, my decision to come to Christ was delayed for several years after I was offended by an attempt of my pastor to coerce uncommitted children of my age group to “join the Church.” I finally responded to a call for salvation at age thirteen.

Within hours of my decision, I found that the Joy of yearning had been replaced by what Paul calls “the joy of the Lord,” a sense of inner containment, contentment, and a sense of being in the presence of a person. As I’ve said, I had known the basic facts of scripture since early childhood, but now these truths took on the weight of reality. My God-shaped void had been filled. Joy in Lewis’ sense is still important to me, but now it serves as an interior evidence of God’s existence.

You’d think that after all this, I could now relax and settle into a contented routine of building a Christian life. But I soon ran into obstacles. At this point, the ministries of Billy Graham played a crucial role. Within about six months of my conversion, I’d begun to ask questions about issues which were never explicitly addressed in the life of my church. The pulpit ministry was so dedicated to evangelism that every sermon, including Christmas and Easter, was focused on winning the one or two unconverted visitors who might have sneaked in the back rather than discipling the hundreds of committed believers who sat in the pews. I also was at fault because I failed to begin studying the Bible; I’d known most of the stories since birth, but I had never read the Old Testament or the epistles as complete books. Although I had become active in the various youth ministries of the church, by about a year after my conversion the glow of my experience was fading, and I was losing the sense of the Lord’s presence. I began to be lukewarm in my devotion.

At this key juncture, I was saved in my downhill slide through an invitation to go see the Billy Graham movie, ‘The Restless Ones’. This film met several of my needs at once. It gave me a glimpse of what a Christian life is supposed to be like-not a resting on the embalmed memory of a conversion experience in the past, but an ongoing story of growth from one degree of glory to the next. Ralph Carmichael’s film score also introduced me to my ongoing hobby of what we now know as contemporary Christian music. This led me to learn the guitar, which has opened the door for more ministry opportunities than I can remember over the last forty years.

The film also forced me to realize that in order to grow I needed to learn the Bible systematically. Eventually this interest led me to a seminary degree in Christian Education and a Ph.D. in Humanities focusing on the spread of Christianity through cultural expressions.

During my teenage years, I sorely needed an example of a mature Christian man of humility, integrity, and stature. I read and re-read John Pollack’s authorized biography of Mr. Graham many times. Mr. Graham’s popular apologetic books were also very important to my growth during those years.

One blessing I’ve prayed for many times was a chance to express my gratitude to Mr. Graham in person. Although it seems unlikely that I’ll get a chance to do so face-to-face this side of Heaven, I am grateful for this opportunity to tell my story and say: “Thank you, Billy Graham, for your faithfulness and your role in so many important influences on my life.”